The present invention relates in general to a method and an apparatus for controlling a digital electronic product, and more particularly, to a computer remote control that combines with a gate system of a digital home appliance, such that the consuming digital home appliance can be switched on or off by a control signal transmitter.
The avalanche of digital era has digitized various home appliances and centrally controlled the operation thereof. In other words, the computer system becomes the control hub and control gate system for all the digital home appliances. Therefore, the on/off control becomes more and humane and easier.
Currently, the on/off operation of a computer system is still significantly different from that of the home appliances. The on/off operation of a computer cannot be executed by simply pressing a power key because the computer system has to executing operation system for switching on or off. That is, the BIOS stored and configured in the computer system has to be executed for switching on/off the computer system. In addition, various application programs have to be activated, such that the on/off operation of the computer system is typically more time consuming compared to the digital home appliance. Therefore, the common control mechanism for the digital home appliance and the computer is difficult to implement.
Many of the computer manufacturers have made certain modification of the hardware of the computer system to allow the computer system switched on/off by a remote control that controls the on/off status of the digital home appliance. Such hardware modification includes modifications of RS232 interface and COM PORT interface to the modification of PS2 interface. All of these interfaces require specific device for application, such that the hardware structure is complicated, and the cost is greatly increased. Therefore, integrated control of computer system and home appliance is not commonly applied by the consumers yet